Looks like someone is beginning to panic.
President Barack Obama, who was swept into office amid a financial crisis, is trying to avoid being swept out by one.

Obama administration officials are stepping up efforts to push Europe to quell an escalating debt crisis that poses serious risks to the U.S. economy just five months before the presidential election.

U.S. officials are trying to convey lessons from the 2008 global crisis to ease Spain's debt troubles before they cause more financial turmoil and harm to the world global economy. In private meetings, they are urging officials in the 17-nation euro zone to take swifter action to calm markets, reassure depositors about their banks' health, and prevent some of Europe's largest countries from suffocating under high borrowing costs and weak economic growth.

A key lesson from the crisis, U.S. officials say, is act quickly and decisively to stabilize the financial system and prevent investor panic.

For instance, U.S. officials want Europe to use the continent's rescue fund now around 700 billion ($866 billion)to provide assistance to governments struggling with soaring borrowing costs. Allowing the rescue fund to directly recapitalize banks, instead of forcing the struggling governments to borrow first from the rescue fund, would help prevent bank failures and enable the banks to continue lending, which would help support economic growth, the officials believe. Under this approach, the governments wouldn't have to boost their own debt loads by borrowing from the fund.

The U.S. channels much of its advice through the International Monetary Fund, in which it is the largest shareholder. The IMF has been urging Europe to use the rescue fund for that purpose, but the idea is opposed by Germany and other euro-zone nations.

The U.S. and IMF urge Europeans to move more boldly toward tying their national economies more closely together.

#4
Saw this post "The Short Sellers Association (SSA) has just started a super pact for the re-election of Obama. In return ,the Obama administration has promised to continue blocking all attempts to reinstate the up-tic rule. No promises on tanking the economy though his record speaks for its self. All short sellers are encouraged to contribute a portion of recent gains".

Even in the worst of times some make good money.
Many have done well because of this administration. Crisis created means opportunity.

#6
...well, as long as you intervene to avoid the natural destruction in a free market place, you just, sort of putter down the road with the same lame institutions and their campaign contributors and special interests operators leaching on the back of everyone else, one self inflicted crisis to another.

#10
Ok - thanks. After the Fiscal Compact proves its futility, fewer countries may use the euro as their currency. But it doesn't need to be "saved." I could see some sneakiness via the IMF. Otherwise, I'd be inclined to call bull, because I just can't see what the rationale would be.

#11
I thought our best and brightest have already advised Spain and Greece on how to flip their debt?

Didn't Lehman Bros and JP Morgan/Chase and Gouldman Sucks all do a land office business in crazy crap financial schemes and shinnanegans with the EC?
I think the entire world financial crisis is a product of our nonsensical MBA programs at Harvard, U of Chicago, and Yale. Those leftie infested faculties have pumped a million miles of horse crap up the butts of nearly two generations of unethical twits in pinstriped suits.

Where I first saw this was back in Dec. & Jan. Apparently the Fed is printing money to swap for Euros and the Euros are using the dollars to bail out their banks. This was from the WSJ. Apparently since this is a "swap" and not a loan there's no need to really account for it.

Ron Paul, (yeah I know but he IS a Congress critter) is calling for his committee to investigate this funny number work as of this month I think that was also WSJ via another site. Supposedly the EU is getting this service for .5% rather than having to go to our over-capitalized banks and paying 1%-2%.

#13
Saw this post "The Short Sellers Association (SSA) has just started a super pact for the re-election of Obama. In return ,the Obama administration has promised to continue blocking all attempts to reinstate the up-tic rule. No promises on tanking the economy though his record speaks for its self. All short sellers are encouraged to contribute a portion of recent gains".

Even in the worst of times some make good money.
Many have done well because of this administration. Crisis created means opportunity.

'Miss White' (Inside Man): "When there is blood in the streets, buy property."

Oddly enough, the wife and I took said advice last year. Sold our old place and bought a new one in a short sale. (see also: lemons and lemonade)

#14
Thanks for the follow-up AlanC. I'd be interested to know who is on the European end of the swaps - banks? governments? - but swaps and favorable interest rates do not = bailouts. Ron Paul is a kook when it comes to everything else, but I am glad he is watching like a hawk. Someone has to.

#16
Central banks generally only do business with other central banks (Fed, ECB), and give the discount rate. Still, yes, the European banking system is absolutely byzantine, which the euro made ten times worse. E.g., the ECB can't print money as the Fed can. Each member state prints their own euros (a BIG reason everyone is panicking over Greece.)

I agree, I think it's safe to assume there's a fish rotting in there somewhere. I just sought clarification.

Ald. Anthony Beale (9th), chairman of the City Council's Transportation Committee, did not explain who he believed would "get hurt" or who the perpetrators might be. But, he was clearly referring to civil disobedience or maybe even violence at the construction site.

"I'm trying to help you help yourself. When I say that, problems could arise. When you look at a community like Englewood [that] is challenged and you have over $1 billion of work coming through and there's no people of color working on that project, I'm afraid people are going to get hurt," Beale told Clifford during Thursday's committee hearing.

"When you look at the make-up of the community -- when you look at the unemployment rate ... in that particular community, it's probably 35, almost 40 percent. ... To have a contract come like this in the African-American community with less than one percent minority participation is an insult."

Clifford said he "respects and appreciates" Beale's point. But, he also stood his ground, arguing that Metra has "not done anything wrong" and "followed federal statutes to the letter."

As required by federal law, Metra established a 25 percent benchmark for "disadvantaged business enterprises," a category that includes any business with an annual net worth that does not exceed $1.32 million, Clifford said. That means small businesses as well as those owned by minorities and women.

The Justice Department ordered Florida's elections division to halt a systematic effort to find and purge the state's voter rolls of noncitizen voters.

Florida's effort appears to violate both the 1965 Voting Rights Act, which protects minorities, and the 1993 National Voter Registration Act -- which governs voter purges -- T. Christian Herren Jr., the Justice Department's lead civil rights lawyer, wrote in a detailed two-page letter sent late Thursday night.

State officials said they were reviewing the letter. But they indicated they might fight DOJ over its interpretation of federal law and expressed frustration that President Barack Obama's administration has stonewalled the state's noncitizen voter hunt for nine months.

"We are firmly committed to doing the right thing and preventing ineligible voters from being able to cast a ballot," said Chris Cate, spokesman for Secretary of State Ken Detzner, who was ordered by Gov. Rick Scott to conduct the search for potentially ineligible voters.Just the simple fact that Holder doesn't want the non-citizen voters off the rolls says TREASON. Obama and the dhims will not play fair, because they will lose. The blatant attempt to hold onto power shows them as the tyrants they are.There might be a legitimate reason for stopping a purge, but it's incumbent on the DoJ to make clear what that reason is in the letter. From what I've read, they cite the law without explaining further. That won't cut it.

#4
Let's see, as I recall, Lyndon Johnson was president in 1965 and he had the arms of most members of Congress twisted up pretty well behind their backs. Y'all can keep on believing that jimmuh carter was the worst president evar but my vote still goes to old Lyndon Bull...but then that could be because I don't remember Franklin Roosevelt.

#5
I personally think that if the Government had taken a hands off position with the home mortgage mess and let the banks and investment houses eat their crappy financial schemes, we'd be out of the woods by now.

If Obama had just gone in his office, shut the door and vetoed every piece of financial legislation produced by Congress, we'd be around the corner.

The financial meddling,much as FDR's ill advised tinkering extended and made the Depression worse, has made this DEPRESSION worse.

We are in a Depression folks. No two ways to cut it unless you are a Nobel Laureate Economist with his head stuck to the shoulder blades up Obama's butt....are you listening Paul, you are an idiot.

#8
if the Government had taken a hands off position with the home mortgage mess and let the banks and investment houses eat their crappy financial schemes, we'd be out of the woods by now.

The Gov't was the cause of the mortgage mess in forcing the lenders to write mortgages they normally would not. ACORN called it red-lining and racism, but the bottom line was nobody wanted to write loans and mortgages to people who could not pay them back. Not unless the Gov't would buy the bad paper, which spiraled off into the mess we know today.

And yes, everything the Gov't has done to 'fix' the problem has made it worse.

#3
The British writer-philospher C.S. Lewis wrote, "Of all tyranies, a tryany sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppresive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron;s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us wihtout end for they do so with approval of their own conscience."

#7
The British writer-philospher C.S. Lewis wrote, "Of all tyranies, a tryany sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppresive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron;s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us wihtout end for they do so with approval of their own conscience."

[Iran Press TV] Former U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice endorsed Mitt Romney as the Republican presidential nominee at a fundraiser in California Wednesday night, saying he understands the nation's special place in the world.

#2
Hat tip to the brave Ms. Rice. She has long stood in the company of Allan West, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams, Herman Cain, Ward Connerly, Stanley Crouch. She too will suffer the undifferentiated contempt which is the lot of today's black conservatives.

A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.